Unlucky
by alibi2014
Summary: Jinx remembers her past as a villain and a hero. KFxJ


**So after reading some KF/Jinx stuff I realized how much I love this pairing and decided to do my own. It takes place a few weeks after Titans Together. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Titans. But I'm writing a term paper on women in comic books so I rented some books from the library. But, no, I don't think I can pass that off for ownership.**

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Sitting up in bed with her back against the headboard, Jinx stared at the blank sketch pad glaring back at her from where it lay propped against her bent legs. With her left hand she fingered the spiral binding and in her right hand she clutched a grey pencil, the box holding the remaining fourteen colored pencils off to her side. Several times she moved to make a mark on the paper, but each time she stopped short, the off-white void of the paper intimidating her. But it wasn't only that. The sleeping figure of Kid Flash lying next to her was not helping her concentration, either.

It had actually been Kid Flash, or West, as Jinx had taken to calling him, who had inspired her to start taking her art seriously. Back at the HIVE, and later after she created the HIVE Five, Jinx had played around with drawing in her spare time. But the pictures had never meant anything. She used brightly colored crayons to draw unicorns and fairies, and water-colored her way through sunsets and flowers. Looking back at her old work, Jinx had found it to be an apt testament to what her life had once been: One dimensional and empty.

After meeting Kid Flash, Jinx had gone to an art store and bought a good sketchbook and quality pencils, ranging in colors from deep red, to shocking yellow, to dark blues and blacks. The experience had been a new one for her, both because she had never before thought about using dark, meaningful colors, and also because it was the first time in a long while she had actually spent money on something; usually she just stole things.

Jinx watched as Kid Flash turned over in his sleep and, settling again, his chest once again rose and fell with the rhythm of his steady breathing. Jinx smiled and reached out gently to brush some flaming red hair off his face before turning back to her sketch pad.

It wasn't often that Jinx felt at a loss for what to draw. After the events leading up to the epic showdown with the Brotherhood of Evil, Jinx had had more feelings to put into her art than ever before. Guilt, confusion, and, strangely, relief ran deep in her veins. Jinx hadn't been lying to Kid Flash when she told him that she had never felt she had a choice but to be a villain. Born with bright pink hair and eyes and the ability to hex people and objects, Jinx had always known she would never fit into society. So rather than be an unknown misfit, Jinx had decided to make a name for herself as a villain.

She received a scholarship to HIVE academy after showing her skills to her future headmaster, and trained under the best the villain teaching world had to offer. In Brother Blood and the HIVE Jinx found more than a teacher and a school; she found a father figure, a community that accepted her, and a reason to keep on going. Her second week of class she was matched up with Gizmo and Mammoth who, though one was annoying and the other dumb as a rock, became like brothers to her. Because of their close relationship, and for other reasons, Jinx had never even considered dating them, so she had been more than exited to meet Stone in her third year at the academy.

Not only was Stone smart and good looking, but he was different than the other villains Jinx trained with. While the rest of her classmates were in the villain industry for profit or out of anger, Jinx was there because she thought she would never fit in anywhere else. She had thought that in Stone she had found another good soul. It turned out that Stone was _too _good of a soul. When he revealed himself to be an infiltrator, Jinx had realized that, like being a good guy, Stone, or Cyborg, was just another thing she could never have.

Two years later Jinx found herself in charge of her own team, following the mental and physical breakdown of her headmaster and her recent graduation. But instead of breaking off from the HIVE all together Jinx had formed the HIVE Five, a subdivision that actually had six members, as was the fault of Kyd Wykkyd, who was so quiet Jinx had actually forgotten about him until after all the arrangements had already been made.

Along with Gizmo and Mammoth, Jinx had taken with her Billy Numerous, because of his manpower, Kyd Wykkyd, because he intrigued her, and See-More, with whom she had become much closer after fighting Mother Mae Eye. It wasn't until a little later that Jinx realized See-More saw her as more than just a friend. And although she did not feel the same way, Jinx had never imagined she would end up using him, especially to get closer to someone else. But that was how things had turned out, and it was something she had never ceased to feel bad about.

Thinking back on how everything had unfolded, Jinx couldn't help but think that it was fate that had brought her and Kid Flash together- after all, her whole life was built around curses; why wouldn't she be a little superstitious? The day before she met Kid Flash, Jinx had been sitting in the living room of her tower, reading the newspaper in hopes that someone was displaying goods that day or a museum was getting a new piece. As Jinx looked down the list her eyes had fallen on a good luck amulet currently on exhibit at a local museum, and suddenly, amidst the arguing of Gizmo and Mammoth, the sketches of unicorns hidden in her desk, and the recent breakdown of her old headmaster, Jinx had felt like she had before joining the HIVE: Lost and out of her element. When she circled the article and informed the team that the next day they would be committing a heist at the Jump City Museum, she hadn't known herself what she would do with the piece of jewelry, just that now more than ever she wanted something to counteract her dark powers, to give her the opportunity to change her life.

So it had felt like more than coincidence when Kid Flash had shown up and tried talking her out of her team. But talking to him, admitting to feeling unfulfilled, Jinx suddenly didn't know what to think. All she had ever known was evil and bad luck- why should her life change now, just because a kind, handsome super hero told her it could? So Jinx decided that she had two options: Seriously reconsider her life, or capture Kid Flash, who was currently on the top ten list of the Brotherhood of Evil's most-wanted list. And seeing as she wasn't about to sit down in a museum while her team looked on, Jinx had assisted in the detaining of Kid Flash.

Looking back, Jinx realized she had a lot to thank Madame Rouge for. Had it not been for her demeaning and ungracious attitude, it was likely Jinx would have simply handed Kid Flash over to her former idol. But Madame Rouge had proved that, like most villains, she was not only evil but just plain mean- mean enough that Jinx had freed the speedster simply to infuriate Rouge. And it was after that, after freeing Kid Flash, after defeating Madame Rouge, after finding the rose at her feet, that Jinx had, literally and figuratively, stepped into the shadows.

That evening was the last time Jinx spoke to her team. For days she wandered through Jump City, clutching the rose for dear life. What she was looking for she had no idea, all she knew was that she couldn't stay with her team any longer. Those days would blur together for her, one indistinguishable from the next. Where she slept and ate she had only faint recollections, but that wasn't to say she had no memories from that time. During those five or six days she thought more about her future than she ever had before. It was the realization that she couldn't conceive of how she would exist outside of the villain world that made her seek out Kid Flash.

She locked herself in a phone booth, one of the few remaining around Jump City, and started absentmindedly flipping through the phone book. After looking under K and F and finding no one with names even remotely similar to his, Jinx came to the conclusion that she would have to use rather unorthodox methods to find him.

Robbing the jewelry store was both the easiest and hardest thing she had ever done. Physically it was a piece of cake, as the guards' batons and handguns were no match for her powers. But in using the powers to find Kid Flash she was reminded that no matter what she did or where she went she would always be bad luck.

As time went on Jinx became nervous. After setting off the alarm, disposing of the guards, and pocketing a few pieces of jewelry, Kid Flash still hadn't shown up. It wasn't until she had made her getaway at the sound of police sirens and was walking down an alley nearby that she felt the wind rush past her and looked up to see him in all his red and yellow grandeur.

He had smiled at her and asked what she had taken, to which Jinx responded by emptying her pockets onto the ground, her eyes never leaving his. "You can take it back," she said to him, motioning to the necklaces and bracelets lying at her feet. After a moment of silence she added, "I want to change."

"I know," he answered.

"But I don't think I can." Again Kid Flash smiled, but this time he walked up to her and closed his arms around her, letting her rest her face in his neck.

"I'll help you."

So Jinx had moved in with Kid Flash, at first sleeping on the pullout couch and later, when their relationship became more than platonic, sharing his bed. In the following months Jinx hadn't used her powers at all, either on the side of the heroes or the villains. She watched from the sidelines as Kid Flash continued stopping robberies and catching crooks just like he had done all his life, and wondered why she couldn't just fight by his side. But deep down she knew. Even though she had never loved being a villain, it had made up her whole life. And although she was willing to quit her team, it didn't necessarily mean she was willing to fight them.

It was one evening when Kid Flash had gotten back to their apartment to find her sitting on the couch painting that he finally brought it up.

"Your art has really improved."

She had raised her eyebrows and responded, "Just say it."

"What?"

"The unicorns. It always gets back to the unicorns."

"Well… Yeah."

Now Jinx looked up at him. "What?"

"I mean," Kid Flash had pulled off his mask and sat down next to her, gently taking the picture out of her hands. "I mean, before you drew unicorns and stuff. Just girly things. But now look." And he had held up her painting, letting the light bounce off of the abstract swirls of red, black, and orange, rough faces and hands barely intelligible through the layers of paint. "Now it has feeling. Now it's layered. Now it means something."

Jinx had grabbed the painting back. "I guess. So what?"

"So… Maybe you're ready to find your other layers, too."

Jinx sighed, running her hand through her hair. "I- I don't know. How can I- I mean, how can I do it? I don't know how. I don't know if I'm ready."

"Jinx," he said, and she had looked up into his piercing blue eyes. "I got a call today. All communications have been severed."

"Communications with who?"

Kid Flash had sighed. "With… everybody. There was a call on my communicator that all lines of contact were being closed." He had pulled out his Titan communicator, and Jinx had seen that it had been disconnected. "Everyone's gone."

Jinx inhaled sharply. "What do you mean?"

"All of the… the 'good guys' have been captured." After a moment of silence he had continued. "I think there are a few left, but I don't know. But I'm… I'm going in tomorrow, to see if I can get anybody out. And you're more than welcome to come with me."

All Jinx knew was that this was a chance to prove herself, both to the heroes of Jump and Steel Cities, and to herself. She smiled, her eyes glowing softly pink. "I'd love to."

While fighting the Brotherhood Jinx had tried not to think too much, to just act. She set her sights on villains she had never seen before, and on getting back at Madame Rouge. But she had also tried as hard as possible not to exchange blows with any of her former teammates. She felt, and would always feel, that although they were villains, they had still been her friends.

And after the fight was over, she had gone back to Titans Tower with Kid Flash, were she had exchanged awkward hello's with the Teen Titans, and had been glad when Kid Flash had asked if she wanted to leave. It had been nice to show the Titans where her interests lay, but she hadn't exactly been ready to tell them her life story. As a certain evil mastermind she once worked for used to say, trust is easy to destroy, but it takes time to build.

Taking another glance at Kid Flash sleeping beside her, Jinx brought her pencil down to the paper, making a few rough strokes to make sure she liked where she was going. Satisfied, she continued to draw, exchanging the grey pencil for various colored ones, letting the pencils dance across the paper in sweeps and swirls, until finally she set her pencil down and looked at her creation.

A unicorn looked back at her from out of a dark field, the animal's dark coat and mane just a shade darker than the green grass surrounding it. Its horn was a shiny black, the color the same as the mystical horse's eyes. The sky above it, which one would have thought would be deep blue, was a swirl of red and yellow, creating a striking contrast.

Smiling at her work, Jinx laid the sketchbook down on the nightstand beside her and took one last look at what she had drawn, the timeline she had put on paper. Her past, so unfulfilling and unwillingly dark. Her present, still confused, but marked with potential. And her future… It was still a blank, but as Jinx switched off the light and kissed Kid Flash on the cheek, she realized the only way to know her future would be to live it. And it wouldn't be alone.

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**So what did you think? Please review, and thanks for reading!**


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